Postal Service's Informed Delivery Feature Could Be Helping Fraudsters

The U.S. Postal Service's program designed to make snail mail easier and more convenient may be exposing its customers to fraud. 

The USPS Informed Delivery program currently has 13 million users. These customers sign up to receive a scan of their incoming mail before it's delivered. 

The Secret Service issued an internal warning about this pattern of abuse on Nov. 8, cybersecurity expert Brian Krebs reported. 

So how do thieves hack the system? By signing up for Informed Delivery in someone else's name. For example, a thief could gain prior knowledge of when a bank is sending a new credit card and could then grab it from the mailbox before the real customer.

This isn't a hypothetical threat. In September, police arrested seven people in Michigan for stealing $400,000 in gift cards from other people's mail. 

"Unfortunately, in very few cases, an individual's identity has already been compromised by a criminal who then has used it to set up an Informed Delivery account," USPS said in a statement. 

In February, USPS began notifying customers by mail if their address was signed up to receive Informed Delivery.